


Smother

by CKBookish



Series: Batman Bingo 2020 [19]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Hood - Fandom
Genre: Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, DC can Yeet itself, Death, Death in the Family, Gen, I mean... We all know what happens, Jason Todd Deserves Better, Jason Todd Needs A Hug, This be a bit sad, Yes that one - Freeform, but it doesn't stick in dc soo..., i will die on this hill, not graphic at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:20:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26461081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CKBookish/pseuds/CKBookish
Summary: She took another drag of the cigarette, letting the smoke roll in her lungs for a long moment before allowing it hiss out between her teeth.  The screams from the warehouse weren’t completely muffled by the distance, or the walls.  Perhaps she was only imagining them.But then, sounds like that, she didn’t think she could dream up.  She jumped after a particularly high pitched yelp.“Get a grip.”  She dropped the cigarette and pulled out another.  Her hand shook as she lit it. “It’s just some random kid.  He’s not--”  She bit back a sob. She didn’t deserve to cry. She had no right to tears, not when it was her fault.Batman bingo 2020: Betrayed
Relationships: Sheila Haywood & Jason Todd
Series: Batman Bingo 2020 [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1590904
Comments: 10
Kudos: 94





	Smother

**Author's Note:**

> Another Batman Bingo done! 
> 
> Batman bingo 2020: Betrayed
> 
> Title taken from Smother by Daughter. 
> 
> some dialog taken from Death in the Family.

I lay in the graveyard of best intentions

and worse decisions. 

* * *

She took another drag of the cigarette, letting the smoke roll in her lungs for a long moment before allowing it hiss out between her teeth. The screams from the warehouse weren’t completely muffled by the distance, or the walls. Perhaps she was only imagining them. 

But then, sounds like that, she didn’t think she could dream up. She jumped after a particularly high pitched yelp.

“Get a grip.” She dropped the cigarette and pulled out another. Her hand shook as she lit it. “It’s just some random kid. He’s not--” She bit back a sob. She didn’t deserve to cry. She had no right to tears, not when it was her fault. 

She had seen so many die. She had seen men and women and children starve and waste away. She had seen diseases and injury take the gentlest souls. This wasn’t that. This would be a single moment. Not some long slow death. There were worse things surely. 

He had signed up for this life. This was the great Robin. Not some innocent child.  _ He’s your child _ , a small voice whispered.  _ No. I don’t have-- Willis took that from me long ago _ . Her child had been dead and buried in her heart for a long time. Until he walked into her tent and-- No. She clamped down on the feeling. It would do her no good. What was done was done. This was how she would keep living. 

It was do this or let her life be over and she had worked so hard to start over. She had done everything right. Ethiopia had been her atoning for her sins. What was another sin to make up for? But then she didn’t think she could make up for this. 

A loud cry came from somewhere behind her. Sheila turned towards it, tears fighting to fall from her eyes. He sounded so like the baby she left, that cry was so familiar. The cigarette dropped to the ground, forgotten. 

* * *

“Willis are you sure?” Sheila pulled Jason closer. “Maybe I could take him with me?”

“No, I’ll follow on a plane. He’s too small to stay in the cargo hold with you.” 

Sheila knew that. Running from Gotham was the hardest thing she had ever done. Her hands shook as she passed Willis Jason. “I’ll see you in three weeks.” 

Willis nodded and pulled her forward, kissing her fiercely. “Take care of yourself. Huh?” 

Jason screamed as she turned and walked away. 

“Hey! Knock it off, kid.” Willis hissed.

Jason wailed louder, but she didn’t turn around. 

* * *

Sheila closed her eyes, the screams were too much. It was all too much. She felt hot and cold all at once. Suddenly her feet were moving in the direction her mind screamed against. But it seemed her mind had lost out to her heart. 

“Joker!” She rounded the corner, but couldn’t bring herself to look. Jason was moving slightly. She could see that much at least out of the corner of her eye. “What will Batman do when he finds out?” 

She wasn’t sure what she was thinking. Joker won’t care, but the screaming had stopped and in that moment it was enough. She didn’t deserve the relief it gave her. She knew that. She knew what she was. She felt relief all the same. She wasn’t sure if she cared whether or not he was dead, just that she wouldn’t have to hear him anymore. 

“I hadn’t thought of that.” Joker twilled the crowbar in his hands. Blood splattered on her shirt. The red spread across the white surface. She did her best not to be sick.  _ Blood of her blood. _

“The Bat can be quite vengeful. I guess I better destroy all the evidence.” The Joker’s face spread into a sick grin. “It’s really too bad you’re a witness.”

Her arms were grabbed roughly from behind. 

“What are you doing?” The guilt she had been feeling was quickly replaced by fear and she remembered why she had agreed to this in the first place-- why she had said yes so quickly when the Joker black mailed her. She didn’t want to die. 

Jason seemed to be trying to get up. But he quickly fell back to the ground. So he was still breathing, even if it wasn’t for long.

Sheila began thrashing with all her might against the hands that held her. But they were much too big. 

She should have seen it coming. She should have known. You reap what you sow. That’s what her mother always said. This was it. She was going to die. She deserved to die. She was a murder. Maybe now at least she would have a chance to apologize to that poor girl. 

The pillar they tied her to was cold. She watched the Joker place the bomb against a crate. His laugh as he left caused the hair on her arms to stand on end. The door closed with a definite click. It echoed in her ears like a gun shot. 

What had it all been for? What had she really done? 

No one would cry for her when she was gone. The thought was strange. None of her coworkers would. Willis was dead-- if he had ever even loved her. And the son she had bore would die blaming her. So she cried-- her tears only for herself. 

A groan filled the room. Jason pushed himself up. 

“You’re still alive.” she whispered, though no one could hear them. Sheila wasn’t sure how he was moving. You were supposed to whisper to the dying. That’s what you did. 

“Sheila?” Jason looked up at her through swollen eyes. 

“Jason! There’s a bomb.” Hope swelled in her gut. Jason was Robin. He would save her. He would do it. The small voice snorted.  _ No, one would save you. _ “Can you-- Can you disarm it?” She held her breath, as he crawled to it. 

“No there’s no time.” His voice was raw from the screaming. It broke and squeaked over the words. 

She felt her jaw tremble. Her mouth ached to open and beg him to save her. Her mind was screaming at her to tell him he had to disarm it anyway. But that small baby she left-- She had hurt him over and over. She had  _ never  _ put him first.

“You have to go.” Her face was wet. But she couldn't move her arms to wipe away the tears. 

“I’ll save you, mom.” Jason’s voice was steady even as he struggled to speak. 

“Jason-- just go.”

His fingers were fumbling with knots. And suddenly the constricting ropes that were her doom feel away. 

“Go!” Jason shouted at her as he slumped forward against the pillar. “You’re free. Run!”

She took a step forward, but stopped. She couldn’t not again. She had left him so many times. 

“Come on, Jason.” She turned and reached for him. He was so small. It seemed so impossible that he was fifteen. “Let’s go.” 

Jason’s eyes widened as she pulled his arm over her shoulder. He hadn’t thought she would save him. And that hurt more than any wrong she had ever done. 

The door was so close. The slow beeping clock that was counting down to their death seemed louder than ever. Her heart seemed to match the beat, as if it two were counting down to her demise. 

She pulled against the door. They were almost there, maybe not out of the blast range but if they could just get to the otherside of the door-- 

It was locked. 

“No!” 

Jason looked up at her in surprise. “W’as wro’g?” He slurred. 

“Joker-- He.” She was so stupid. Of course he did. “He locked us in.”

If Jason had been pale before it was nothing to what he was now. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” 

She didn’t understand. Why-- why would he apologize to her? She didn’t deserve it. She had never deserved him. 

“Can you tell, Bruce. Thank you for me?” Jason was crying now. Had he been crying before? She couldn’t remember now.

“What do you mean?” She asked. “Thank you for what?” How could she tell someone anything when they would be dead. 

“He’ll kno--”

* * *

The room was silent. Willis was squeezing her hand so tightly she thought it might break. Why was he silent? 

“My baby?” She cried out to the room begging anyone to answer. “Where is he?” 

The nurses were moving so quickly. The Doctor was saying something, but she didn’t understand. She was a doctor, why didn’t she suddenly understand anything?

“Jason?” She shouted. She didn’t know why she said it. She and Willis hadn’t settled on the name, but suddenly her father’s name seemed the only possibility. The name of a man who never gave up. “Jason!” 

This time her cry was answered. A small voice broke the silence of the room and tears had never been so beautiful.

* * *

“Jason!” 

She woke to the shouts. The fire was all around her and she couldn’t move. Strangely she felt no pain. Perhaps she was simply too far gone to feel anymore. Her arms and legs didn’t seem to obey her as she fought to find the source of the shouting. Jason? She knew something about Jason. 

“Here!” She called out. “Please help me.” 

A shadow fell over her and for a moment she wondered if the Angel of Death itself was here. The shadowy figure pulled her gently from underneath fallen beams and burning debris. 

“Sheila?” The voice sounded familiar. But she couldn’t place it. “What happened?”

“Joker. I-- I’m so sorry.” She felt so empty, as the memory washed over her. What had she done? Something deep inside her must have been broken to have allowed… “Jason.”

She turned her head hoping just for a glimpse of him. Why had he done that? Why had he jumped in front of her like that? 

“Sheila, what happened to Jason?” The angel’s voice was thick and watery. 

She wanted to laugh, even heaven above knew she wasn’t worth it’s time. It hadn’t been her that the angel searched for. She felt her heart-- not break, she didn’t think she had enough energy to feel that. She hadn’t been loved for a long time. But then that wasn’t true. Jason had, if not loved at least cared whether she lived or died. “He tied us up and there was-- Jason. God. I didn’t deserve him.”

The figure holding her stiffened. “Where?”

“He--” Coughs racked her body and something was burning in her chest. She wished she could go back to not feeling anything. “He tried to save me, Why would he do that?”

“Sheila? Where is he?” The dark figure was turning wildly looking for any sign of the son she had betrayed. 

She wondered if he would find peace in heaven. He deserved it. She knew she would find no rest, when the figure took her. 

“Jason!” The scream was filled with something she didn’t recognize. The angel started to stand but she reached and clutched it’s long cloak. If Death cared enough to find him maybe...

“He wanted me to tell Bruce. Can you tell him?” She suddenly needed to do this one thing. This angel of death she would beg him like the rich-man begged the prophet for water. She could endure hell if she just made sure Bruce knew. 

“What?” He asked her softly.

“He told me to tell Bruce. You have to tell him please?” She felt a strange cold come over her. “He said to tell him thank you.”

The angel wept over her but she knew it wasn’t for her. 

* * *

The icy winds of Gotham blew snow over the cemetery in swirling wisps and spirals. The grave stood alone amongst the sea of headstones. He pulled his jacket closer, and read the name again. The inscription was a lie, Mother of Jason. Perhaps a more accurate declaration would be Murderer of Jason. 

The idyllic stone left a bitter taste in his mouth, but he couldn’t bring himself to quite hate it either. She had for whatever reason tried to get him out in the end. Even if it was too little too late. So... maybe murderer wasn’t so apt a term either. 

Whatever she was to him, it wasn’t a Mother. Jason kicked the dead leaves that were half frozen to the stone. The person who should have been his main fortress from the world had been his undoing. She had left him for dead more than once. And yet he was here. 

Bruce stood leaning against the car several rows away. He wondered if he knew. He must not, or he wouldn’t have buried her. Not here. She would have been left in some far off land, buried with the refugees she dedicated herself to. The empty plot next to her, left the hairs on his arms standing on end. No, If Bruce knew he would have never buried him next to her. 

But Jason couldn’t tell him. He would take Sheila’s betrayal with him to the grave. Well the second grave he guessed. He had already done it once, what was a second time? 

“Hey, Shelia.” Jason didn’t know what he was supposed to say. I’m sorry you died, didn’t seem right. Though it was true. He was sorry she died. But he had long realized it wasn’t because he loved her. 

“Catherine was-- you would have liked her… well actually I bet you hated her.” Jason would never know if Sheila left him willingly or if Willis had taken him from her. But he couldn’t imagine the woman who left him to die, staying; even if she had come back in the end.

“I’m not really sure what you were like. I’ll never know if you liked pie or cake. I’ll never know what music you liked, or how you took your tea. All I know is what you did to me. And I well-- I just wanted to say. I forgive you. I forgave you a long time ago, really. I forgave you in that warehouse. But. I never--” Jason’s throat suddenly seemed so tight. “I know you were in a bad situation and saw no way out.”

Tears fell on the snow. The hot liquid melted through it, leaving dimples on the ground. 

Jason swore and saw Bruce stand up straighter. He held up his hand, making Bruce waver and stop. He didn’t want him to know and if he came over here, he would tell him. 

“I understood why you did it. But I guess-- what really sucked was that you did it anyway.” A petty part of him wanted to tell her-- though she wasn’t really even there-- that Catherine would have never done it, that Bruce would have died in his stead. He doubted even Willis would have done something so completely terrible. A small-- likely pit affected-- part of him wanted to punch her headstone until either it or he broke. 

But a larger part of him, rather wanted to sit and cry at just how unfair it all was. 

Jason stood over the grave for a long time, wondering if he had gone to Ethiopia first, if he had looked for Sheila earlier, would it all be different? When his fingers grew numb and his toes icy, he turned and trudged back past the tombs of strangers. What an odd life he lived. Bruce gave him a small smile and opened the door for him. Jason found it ironic-- though they both had their faults-- the two parents he could claim no shared blood, were the only ones to really love him. 


End file.
